A Pemex for pot not likely, says Senate leader but draft marijuana law is under way
by Mexico News Daily
A proposal to create a state-owned company to control the sale and distribution of marijuana in a regulated market appears to have no chance of succeeding: neither President López Obrador nor the ruling party’s leader in the Senate have offered support for the idea.
Mario Delgado, leader of the Morena party in the lower house of Congress, presented a bill on Tuesday that proposed that a state company called Cannsalud would have exclusive authority to purchase marijuana from legal producers and sell it to both authorized franchisees – who would supply the recreational retail market – and pharmaceutical companies.
On Wednesday, he clarified that his draft General Law for the Control of Cannabis was a purely personal proposal that doesn’t have the backing of the president and other Morena lawmakers.
The deputy rejected claims made on social media that his bill, which would also allow adults to grow up to six cannabis plants for personal use, would turn Mexico into a narco-state.
Delgado explained that under his proposal, 25% of marijuana sales profits would go to the implementation of social programs in communities where authorities have eradicated illegal cannabis crops and 20 percent would be spent on the detection and treatment of drug addiction.
But Morena Senate leader Ricardo Monreal poured cold water on Delgado’s state pot company, declaring that there should be a regulated market for marijuana but not one in which the government has a monopoly.
He also said that the Senate has nearly completed its own bill for the legalization and regulation of marijuana.
“…We’re very close to having a draft marijuana law,” Monreal said, adding that he will seek input from Delgado and other lower house lawmakers.
The Senate is looking at 12 different proposals on legalization and regulation that were discussed at recent open Senate sessions, the senator said.
“…If the Chamber of Deputies proposal is added, that’s 13. The idea is to try to make the best law possible. We’ve spent hours and hours debating this issue in the Senate and we’re going to respectfully invite [deputies] so that they join us in the next debates,” Monreal said.
The senator predicted that marijuana will be legalized by the end of the month and said that he was open to other aspects of Delgado’s bill being included in the final draft voted on by lawmakers.
“…We’re thinking that we’ll bring the law out, approve it, at the end of October. That’s the schedule we have. I’ll speak personally [to Delgado] so that the proposals contained in the initiative presented yesterday [Tuesday] can be considered here [in the Senate] . . .”
Source: El Universal (sp), El Financiero (sp)
6 months later, ‘the perfect robbery’ remains a mystery
Thieves got away with US $2.4 million in Guanajuato airport heist
Six months after a band of armed thieves stole US $2.4 million worth of United States and Canadian dollars in just three minutes at Guanajuato International Airport, the crime remains unsolved.
Even though the brazen heist took place in a federal zone, the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) delegated the investigation to its counterpart in Guanajuato, the newspaper Milenio reported on Friday. Neither state nor federal authorities have provided an update about the progress of the probe.
On the night of Wednesday, April 3, between six and eight men carried out what one former security official described as “the perfect robbery.”
Using a truck disguised with a fake Aeroméxico logo, the men breached security to enter the runway area, where they intercepted an airport service vehicle that was in the process of delivering the cash to a waiting plane.
The money had arrived at the airport in a PanAmericano armored truck in order to be sent to Mexico City.
The armed men stole 14 of 18 bags of cash from a sole unarmed PanAmericano guard and two airport employees traveling across the tarmac in a luggage transport vehicle.
The thieves then loaded the money into their truck, drove to the perimeter of the airport property and escaped through a wire fence in which a large opening had been cut.
Airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico said in a statement that the thieves entered the airport, carried out the robbery and left within a period of three minutes.
Shortly after the incident, police found the truck that was used and recovered two of the stolen bags of cash. They later found two more bags of cash in another abandoned vehicle.
Juan Miguel Alcántara Soria, former head of the National Public Security System, claimed that “the perfect robbery” was made possible by “flaws” of the authorities responsible for providing security at the airport – the Federal Police outside the facility and the army in the terminal and runway area.
When the robbery occurred, military personnel were in the baggage collection area. By the time they realized what had happened, the thieves had already left the airport. Federal and state police as well as the army conducted a joint search but made no arrests.
Alcántara told Milenio that the Guanajuato office of the FGR, not state authorities, should be carrying out the investigation into the crime, adding that the absence of progress in the case is an example of the kind of impunity that plagues Guanajuato and the whole country.
Source: Milenio (sp).
